The field of the invention is underground utility equipment vaults and more particularly to an improved vault provided with a plurality of concentric chambers, the innermost of said chambers passively or convection cooled, and the outermost chamber constructed to be highly resistant to corrosion and simultaneously superior heat dissipating capabilities.
For a variety of ecological, environmental and esthetic reasons, it has become increasingly desirable to locate certain kinds of electronic equipment underground. This has been accomplished by forming a vault enclosure and equipping it above ground and then burying it.
There are several very significant problems with prior art vaults formed and buried in this manner. The first problem is that electronic gear operating within the vault generates a great deal of heat which must be appropriately dissipated to prevent overheat equipment failures and to prevent condensation within the vault which itself could create short-out equipment failures.
Secondly, vaults of the underground type in the past have generally been constructed of concrete and such vaults have been vulnerable to seepage and cracking from freezing and thawing permitting further leakage. Condensation problems and ultimately collapse of the vault itself due to break-up of repeated freezing and thawing. Concrete is a very poor heat exchange material and such vaults must be made with seams increasing their vulnerability.
Additional prior art problems resulted from past inability to isolate interior electrical gear from the metallic vault wall creating a potential for severe electrical shock and resulting in substantial electrolysis effects on the metallic vault.